Who do you prefer, units with good HP and middling defenses or units with great defenses and bad to middling HP?

[mangasdeouf]

Hi,

Like the title says, I wonder what is the general preference of players and your individual preference between defense stacking units without good HP and units with less but still decent def who can be called HP bags?

As an example, we could compare Rinkah, Hinata, Effie and Arhtur and the value of stat boosters on them to patch their weak trait and make them your most valuable early frontliners (Silas seems out of this league since he has neither good HP nohr good defense at base and stays middling in both unless RNG blessed or Revelations!Silas but he's a completely different unit with stats nearly comparable with royal heirs so he's out).

Votes have already started so I add this: it would really be nice if you commented on the reasoning behind your choice (strategy, tactics, use of the units, how good is def/res vs hp and why you would prefer one over the other, especially in Fates where HP is a very limited ressource, damage is high and seraph robe is shit but made up for with tonics, meanwhile dragonshield stays the same and can be topped with tonics too).

Edited May 13, 2020 by mangasdeouf

[Hanes]

High defense is just  better. Take this example.

Enemy has 20 Atk, it can fight two units. One has 10 HP and 20 DEF and the other has 20 HP and 10 DEF.
Mathematically their rating is the same but only one of those will actually ever die.

[JAZ_2002]

24 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

High defense is just  better. Take this example.

Enemy has 20 Atk, it can fight two units. One has 10 HP and 20 DEF and the other has 20 HP and 10 DEF.
Mathematically their rating is the same but only one of those will actually ever die.

yeah what he said

[Shrimp Boat]

Im a bit biased cause I love late joining berserkers with high HP. Personally for me I feel more conformable with a high Hp middling defense unit on the front lines than one with Middling Hp and High defense but that's just a personal preference. I see the reasoning for both sides though.  

 

Or you could just have RD haar with both 

[Callie]

Definitely HP. Cause Hp can tank both Str and Mag dame. I think people prefer def more, cause the enemies mostly str attack damage. ( in early chapters )

Edited May 13, 2020 by Hong Nhi

[Hanes]

24 minutes ago, Hong Nhi said:

Definitely HP. Cause Hp can tank both Str and Mag dame. I think people prefer def more, cause the enemies mostly str attack damage. ( in early chapters )

Well In that case let's say the unit in question has equal def as res. the latter example which I mentioned before wins.

30 minutes ago, JAZ_2002 said:

yeah what he said

Hey that picture on your banner... is so cool! I'm taking it.

[Callie]

17 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

Well In that case let's say the unit in question has equal def as res. the latter example which I mentioned before wins.

Hey that picture on your banner... is so cool! I'm taking it.

In what i have said, the case is a unit with low res. 20 defend is nothing compare to magic users. A general class with high defend can easily be slained by unpromoted magic users . So if he dont have res, Hp is the other way he can survive the attack.

Mostly classes with high res, would have low def(magic user v...v.....). And units high def would have low res(general,paladin,v...v....) some classes with low def and res, but have speed,luk to dodge ( myrmidon, dancer, mercanary )

Units with high def and res. they are basically gods in fire emblem, 1 man army. (ex:Robin.Morgan,Corrin,Kana). Enemies instantly pick a god and pray when see those units.

Edited May 13, 2020 by Hong Nhi

[Hanes]

1 minute ago, Hong Nhi said:

In what i have said, the case is a unit with low res. 20 defend is nothing compare to magic users. A general class with high defend can easily be slained by unpromoted magic users . So if he dont have res, Hp is the other way he can survive the attack.

Mostly classes with high res, would have low def(magic user v...v.....). And units high def would have low res(general,paladin,v...v....) some classes with low def and res, but have speed,luk to dodge ( myrmidon, dancer, mercanary )

A unit with high def and res. he is basically a god, 1 man army. (ex:Robin.Morgan). Enemies instantly pick a god and pray when see that unit.

fair 'nuff.

[Callie]

8 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

fair 'nuff.

banner ?

U mean "summoner", "i'm a paladin" ?

Im not good in english, not sure which part is banner .

 

[Shadow Mir]

High HP. Units with good defense but low HP are likely to fold like a bad poker player the moment a mage comes along, UNLESS they also have high resistance. And chances are that ain't the case.

[Hanes]

10 minutes ago, Hong Nhi said:

banner ?

U mean "summoner", "i'm a paladin" ?

Im not good in english, not sure which part is banner .

 

That part below each post is called the banner in this Forum.

Though I was talking to Jaz_2002 about his banner with the picture of Rebecca and Wil in it. I made it even more clear that I meant to talk to him by quoting* him and telling him about his banner 

*"quoting" in a Forum are the boxes like the one above where I'm writing this, where what you wrote appears in my post

Also your English is pretty decent, be proud of being able to go on online ENglish forums 😄. I tried to write the most simple sentence possible to help you understand better. 


EDIT: Also I said "'fair 'nuff" a bit ago, that's a shortening of the phrase "Fair enough" which means something like "I guess you're right/not wrong"

Edited May 13, 2020 by This boi uses Nino

[Eltosian Kadath]

For Fates specifically I think I will go with middling defense high HP, even if we assume high defense and resistance. There are a lot more ways to inflate unit's defense/resistance in battle than there are ways of inflating their HP stat, and if that defense/resistance gets too high enemies will ignore the unit you want to tank the hit, denying you retaliation damage you may need to deal with the group.

[Callie]

24 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

High HP. Units with good defense but low HP are likely to fold like a bad poker player the moment a mage comes along, UNLESS they also have high resistance. And chances are that ain't the case.

we have a same thought. hand shake 🙂

14 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

For Fates specifically I think I will go with middling defense high HP, even if we assume high defense and resistance. There are a lot more ways to inflate unit's defense/resistance in battle than there are ways of inflating their HP stat, and if that defense/resistance gets too high enemies will ignore the unit you want to tank the hit, denying you retaliation damage you may need to deal with the group.

yeah u're right, I forgot about luna+ shit , v...v....

24 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

That part below each post is called the banner in this Forum.

Though I was talking to Jaz_2002 about his banner with the picture of Rebecca and Wil in it. I made it even more clear that I meant to talk to him by quoting* him and telling him about his banner 

*"quoting" in a Forum are the boxes like the one above where I'm writing this, where what you wrote appears in my post

Also your English is pretty decent, be proud of being able to go on online ENglish forums 😄. I tried to write the most simple sentence possible to help you understand better. 


EDIT: Also I said "'fair 'nuff" a bit ago, that's a shortening of the phrase "Fair enough" which means something like "I guess you're right/not wrong"

- hmm.. I search in ur posts . But I seem not find the post u ask about banner . The first post of u is "Looking for Pointer to Unit's Growth Rates" . 

-" that picture on your banner " - So what the picture on my banner look like ? I kinda dumb... so hope u explain more... 😞

- Thank you and big thank to google translate . I abuse it a lot :)))

- yeah. I didn't know "nuff" mean. Google translate don't know that. But  thankfully "Urban dictionary" is exist. Big thank to urban dictionary , too :))

 

Also who do u think the best match for Nino and Rebecca ? (love partner)

Edited May 13, 2020 by Hong Nhi

[Hanes]

7 minutes ago, Hong Nhi said:

hmm.. I search in ur posts . But I seem not find the post u ask about banner . The first post of u is "Looking for Pointer to Unit's Growth Rates" . 

Well see, in the very first comment where I replied to you, I also replied to someone else, (This means "another person") and that other person was the one with the banner who I was asking about. In summary, I wasn't asking you about the banner.

9 minutes ago, Hong Nhi said:

- Thank you and big thank to google translate . I abuse it a lot :)))

Keep working hard, It'll work out eventually with enough dedication.

10 minutes ago, Hong Nhi said:

Also who do u think the best match for Nino and Rebecca ? (love partner)

Well I would tell you BUT, we are in a thread/topic about something else (The hp and def thing) and we can get "Warning Points" for speaking about something else within a topic, so I'll answer you in private.

[Vicious Sal]

Higher Hp and Lower defense/resistance creates more interesting gameplay. Once you have a tank with 40 def/res and every enemy just tings your tank, it's just throw him in and everything dies. 

Higher Hp lower defenses means tanks can still tank, but positioning requires more thought since they are still able to die. Goes for enemies and allies in Fire Emblem.

[Dandy Druid]

In general, units with high HP and lower DEF generally are fast. However, we don't know that for sure, so I voted Higher DEF. Because I never had a problem finding items that increase HP. If the lower DEF unit has great SPD, then I would've voted for the top option.

[samthedigital]

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

For Fates specifically I think I will go with middling defense high HP, even if we assume high defense and resistance. There are a lot more ways to inflate unit's defense/resistance in battle than there are ways of inflating their HP stat, and if that defense/resistance gets too high enemies will ignore the unit you want to tank the hit, denying you retaliation damage you may need to deal with the group.

These are my thoughts exactly. Having control over the defense stat is more important, and it's easier to do with middling defense. It is nice to have high resistance though given that not many units have enough to tank magical hits. That is for this game specifically though because I'd say the answer is very different depending on the game.

[mangasdeouf]

I'm on the higher HP boat for several reasons which include every game of the franchise with stat boosting mechanics (as far as I know Gaiden is the oldest, I don't know if they existed in FE1).

1st: if your unit lacks HP, she is in real danger when ennemy power is high since def only goes so far as your cap allows it to, while power includes str/mag + weapon MT. This means when ennemies are promoted and using silver, you're more likely to see double digit damage on your full def/res tank and that's very bad since it lacks HP (especially in no HP Emblem like Fates where late game berserkers can crit OHKO Effie or let her live with less than 5 HP).

2nd: high HP with high cap means you can tank several hits with 0 def/res (50-60 HP in mind). Every point of def/res over that kind of HP pool (Hp bag) is an insane boost to an already good bulk. when you can permanently increase their def/res by 2 points with 1 item and temporarily with a 150 gold item, their effective HP grow into another world. When you play other games (Summoners War, FF, Monster Hunter, DQ) and fight ennemies with high HP who need several attacks to die although their def is poor, you know that HP>def. If you have to choose between max HP and max def, often you realize that more HP ends up more useful since you're more likely to be focused but still unlikely to die fast.

Charlotte has high HP and low def/res. Yet if you throw all your defense/res boosters at her when you get her (it's a heavy investment but you throw 2 speedwings and an S support at Xander ASAP so it's not that different), which means for me (around 400 BP and 1000 VP) 1 talisman from ch8 and 2 from MyCastle, 1 dragonshield from ch10 and 1 from BP or VP, she instantly jumps from 33/8/2 to 33/12/8 which is way sexier than Effie at this level, because HP tonic gets her to 38 HP and def/res to 14/10. And that's at base, even if her def/res growths are garbage she can still go to a defensive class (hero instead of berserker for example) and get better def base (let's say there's 3 points of def and 2 of res from fighter to hero, she jumps to 17/12 without any level up, and without permanent stat boosters it's still 11/4 without tonics, 13/6 with, not sexy but you see how 1 only stat booster or pair up that I voluntarily let out since I don't like to discuss of this heresy because it can completely change depending on the available pair ups available, changes a unit's performance).

For older games we could take RD as an example: if you give Aran a seraph robe, he tanks well, but ennemies will be more likely to go slaughter your stupid Nolan with his low def since Aran has 5 more def than him in no time, which put him in a state of taking very little damage. And when ennemies start hitting hard, his def doesn't save him since his HP pool is poor and he doesn't like to take 35 damage with 30 HP 20 def (dies in 2 hits) while Volug with 49 base HP 11 def can take more punishment because of his HP bag status. he can't really take on numerous ennemies without dodging, but he can take 2 strong ennemies that Aran is unable to tank without healing. Giving a seraph robe to Aran is nice, but he is still limited to 20/25 def for most of the game (and his HP won't really grow over 40 until the end of part 3 at least), while giving a dragonshield to Volug is much more efficient since he will be better at taking several ennemies with middling damage and will still be able to take 2-3 hard hits without dying. So Volug with +2 def can maybe take 2 more middling damage hits while Aran survives 2 35 damage hits with capped t1 def but if a 27+ damage or 2 24 damage ennemies hit him he's still dead. And Volug being a Laguz in half form it's even better since he gains 3 sat points instead of 2 with a stat booster, and he can get Aran's support for even more def (I don't like relying on dodge on a middling speed unit that could simply nullify 70% of the incoming damage with a dragonshield and a thunder or water support with all the HP you could want to soak up the damage).

Moreover, supports increase stats and a +def/res bonus on a high HP unit has the same effect as a dragonshield on Volug (increasing the number of little attacks they can take while retaining the ability to take 2 strong blows or even 3 without dying) and if you give defensive support bonuses to an unit you also give dragonshield/talisman to, this unit is gonna dominate the battlefield by drowing as many ennemies as they can with an elixir in the inventory while your tank still doesn't attract many ennemies. Now if Provoke was a thing I sure would put it on Tauroneo/Brom/Gatrie/Gilliam/Duessel-like units, but if it's not a thing I know that the ennemy will always seek the target it can deal the most damage to unless it can kill a bulkier unit left low.

For Fates there's another BIG element that pushes the player towards HP: def/res seal. -6 def/res on a tank with Rinkah's stat spread is likely to get her killed really fast if mispositionned, while when you place Hinata you know he will take 2 ennemies and you don't need to check ennemy info most of the time, he's fine with 2, he prefers to avoid fighting 3 at a time.

The best kind of tank would be Benny...if ennemies targetted him at all. But again, Provoke is not in this game and is only in Tellius AFAIK. And Benny needs a promotion to get anywhere by himself although mobility isn't as much of a problem in Fates as it was in GBA/GC/Wii eras. Benny simply jumps on a flyer/horse's back and gets carried to the front where he switches to take the ennemy phase, mechanics-wise it's a big improvement for unmounted units although I'd like Canto to return since trading/using an action burns a mounted unit's turn (so it's a nerf of mounted units, not a good one at that, while it's a buff of unmounted that was looked up to by players who don't sell their mother and sister for more mounted units that led to the domination of cavalry and to some extent fliers for 12 games before the 3DS era).

[Shadow Mir]

33 minutes ago, mangasdeouf said:

I'm on the higher HP boat for several reasons which include every game of the franchise with stat boosting mechanics (as far as I know Gaiden is the oldest, I don't know if they existed in FE1).

1st: if your unit lacks HP, she is in real danger when ennemy power is high since def only goes so far as your cap allows it to, while power includes str/mag + weapon MT. This means when ennemies are promoted and using silver, you're more likely to see double digit damage on your full def/res tank and that's very bad since it lacks HP (especially in no HP Emblem like Fates where late game berserkers can crit OHKO Effie or let her live with less than 5 HP).

2nd: high HP with high cap means you can tank several hits with 0 def/res (50-60 HP in mind). Every point of def/res over that kind of HP pool (Hp bag) is an insane boost to an already good bulk. when you can permanently increase their def/res by 2 points with 1 item and temporarily with a 150 gold item, their effective HP grow into another world. When you play other games (Summoners War, FF, Monster Hunter, DQ) and fight ennemies with high HP who need several attacks to die although their def is poor, you know that HP>def. If you have to choose between max HP and max def, often you realize that more HP ends up more useful since you're more likely to be focused but still unlikely to die fast.

Charlotte has high HP and low def/res. Yet if you throw all your defense/res boosters at her when you get her (it's a heavy investment but you throw 2 speedwings and an S support at Xander ASAP so it's not that different), which means for me (around 400 BP and 1000 VP) 1 talisman from ch8 and 2 from MyCastle, 1 dragonshield from ch10 and 1 from BP or VP, she instantly jumps from 33/8/2 to 33/12/8 which is way sexier than Effie at this level, because HP tonic gets her to 38 HP and def/res to 14/10. And that's at base, even if her def/res growths are garbage she can still go to a defensive class (hero instead of berserker for example) and get better def base (let's say there's 3 points of def and 2 of res from fighter to hero, she jumps to 17/12 without any level up, and without permanent stat boosters it's still 11/4 without tonics, 13/6 with, not sexy but you see how 1 only stat booster or pair up that I voluntarily let out since I don't like to discuss of this heresy because it can completely change depending on the available pair ups available, changes a unit's performance).

For older games we could take RD as an example: if you give Aran a seraph robe, he tanks well, but ennemies will be more likely to go slaughter your stupid Nolan with his low def since Aran has 5 more def than him in no time, which put him in a state of taking very little damage. And when ennemies start hitting hard, his def doesn't save him since his HP pool is poor and he doesn't like to take 35 damage with 30 HP 20 def (dies in 2 hits) while Volug with 49 base HP 11 def can take more punishment because of his HP bag status. he can't really take on numerous ennemies without dodging, but he can take 2 strong ennemies that Aran is unable to tank without healing. Giving a seraph robe to Aran is nice, but he is still limited to 20/25 def for most of the game (and his HP won't really grow over 40 until the end of part 3 at least), while giving a dragonshield to Volug is much more efficient since he will be better at taking several ennemies with middling damage and will still be able to take 2-3 hard hits without dying. So Volug with +2 def can maybe take 2 more middling damage hits while Aran survives 2 35 damage hits with capped t1 def but if a 27+ damage or 2 24 damage ennemies hit him he's still dead. And Volug being a Laguz in half form it's even better since he gains 3 sat points instead of 2 with a stat booster, and he can get Aran's support for even more def (I don't like relying on dodge on a middling speed unit that could simply nullify 70% of the incoming damage with a dragonshield and a thunder or water support with all the HP you could want to soak up the damage).

Moreover, supports increase stats and a +def/res bonus on a high HP unit has the same effect as a dragonshield on Volug (increasing the number of little attacks they can take while retaining the ability to take 2 strong blows or even 3 without dying) and if you give defensive support bonuses to an unit you also give dragonshield/talisman to, this unit is gonna dominate the battlefield by drowing as many ennemies as they can with an elixir in the inventory while your tank still doesn't attract many ennemies. Now if Provoke was a thing I sure would put it on Tauroneo/Brom/Gatrie/Gilliam/Duessel-like units, but if it's not a thing I know that the ennemy will always seek the target it can deal the most damage to unless it can kill a bulkier unit left low.

For Fates there's another BIG element that pushes the player towards HP: def/res seal. -6 def/res on a tank with Rinkah's stat spread is likely to get her killed really fast if mispositionned, while when you place Hinata you know he will take 2 ennemies and you don't need to check ennemy info most of the time, he's fine with 2, he prefers to avoid fighting 3 at a time.

The best kind of tank would be Benny...if ennemies targetted him at all. But again, Provoke is not in this game and is only in Tellius AFAIK. And Benny needs a promotion to get anywhere by himself although mobility isn't as much of a problem in Fates as it was in GBA/GC/Wii eras. Benny simply jumps on a flyer/horse's back and gets carried to the front where he switches to take the ennemy phase, mechanics-wise it's a big improvement for unmounted units although I'd like Canto to return since trading/using an action burns a mounted unit's turn (so it's a nerf of mounted units, not a good one at that, while it's a buff of unmounted that was looked up to by players who don't sell their mother and sister for more mounted units that led to the domination of cavalry and to some extent fliers for 12 games before the 3DS era).

On the other hand, Charlotte has poor defenses, and in general, dracoshields and talismans are best used on a unit who already has good defense; they probably won't help a unit with poor defenses survive an extra hit. Your Volug example fails to hold water because Volug is a laguz, and the moment he reverts, his high HP will sink like the Titanic. Also, it's an exaggeration to say that mounted units dominated in literally all the games before the 3DS games, because Radiant Dawn exists.

Edited May 13, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Ertrick36]

Higher defense, because of the following scenario:

You have an enemy with, like, a crazy crit rate and 30 attack.  They'll attack an armor knight with a defense stat of 28 and HP stat of 18 as well as a fighter with a defense stat of 10 and an HP stat of 60.  The armor knight will receive a measly 2 damage on a normal hit or 6 damage from a crit while the fighter will take 20 damage on a normal hit or be straight up killed on a crit.

Now, assuming this is FE:Fates, people would generally agree that the HP and defense stats of each unit are on pretty high extremes - the knight has pretty high defense but very low HP while the fighter has mediocre defense and max HP.  That enemy would have to crit the armor knight three times to kill him, meanwhile they only need to crit once to kill the fighter.  Of course perhaps the armor knight might get hit multiple times, but we're only looking at just two stats so we should assume the power of a single strike.  And to take magic into consideration, well, pure waters do wonders and barely cost much, not to mention a lot of games don't throw too many mages at you.

 

This assumes that by "prefer" you mean which one I think is better at fighting.

Actually, when it comes to overall strategy, high HP might be better if you're looking to employ cheesy healbot tactics.  But moreover, sometimes it's funner to watch a berserker charge into a battlefield and just yeet everything into oblivion while at constant risk of dying easily to their own hubris (and definitely not my own hubris, because I'm a flawless tactician with no faults whatsoever).

Also, to provide a more serious answer, if the consistent winning strategy for beating a strategy game is to just send a massive defense wall at an enemy, then that game fails at being a strategy game.  From a gameplay standpoint I generally prefer FE games where having high defense doesn't automatically make you nigh invincible against the vast majority of enemy threats.  I actually like that in the original Mystery of the Emblem dragons could just plow right through your units' defenses, and you had to be careful about fighting them.

[Hanes]

2 hours ago, Vicious Sal said:

Higher Hp and Lower defense/resistance creates more interesting gameplay. Once you have a tank with 40 def/res and every enemy just tings your tank, it's just throw him in and everything dies. 

Higher Hp lower defenses means tanks can still tank, but positioning requires more thought since they are still able to die. Goes for enemies and allies in Fire Emblem.

Inspired by the Souls of the Forest hack? Though I agree when it comes to gameplay wise decisions, but as of just which is stronger. Higher Def and Res.

[samthedigital]

Quote

For older games we could take RD as an example: if you give Aran a seraph robe, he tanks well, but ennemies will be more likely to go slaughter your stupid Nolan with his low def since Aran has 5 more def than him in no time, which put him in a state of taking very little damage.

Aran is a poor example since he isn't very bulky. Traditionally a high defense unit takes nearly no damage from enemy attacks, but he gets doubled and dies pretty quickly. Later on into RD having a good defense stat is more important because units are going to be taking a lot of hits on enemy phase, and they might not always have access to a healer every turn.

Quote

Also, to provide a more serious answer, if the consistent winning strategy for beating a strategy game is to just send a massive defense wall at an enemy, then that game fails at being a strategy game.

Unfortunately that's the reality of a lot of the games in the series. Conquest does do a decent attempt at discouraging juggernauting, but it doesn't always work. I also find the process of figuring out what combination of stat boosters to give my units so they get attacked but don't take a lot of damage to be tedious.

[UNLEASH IT]

Poison strike is a thing so High HP is better.

[NinjaMonkey]

High HP, low defense, high speed and luck.

Edited May 14, 2020 by NinjaMonkey

[Vicious Sal]

11 hours ago, This boi uses Nino said:

Inspired by the Souls of the Forest hack? Though I agree when it comes to gameplay wise decisions, but as of just which is stronger. Higher Def and Res.

I have no idea what that is.

 

But yeah, high def/res units are statistically stronger if they reach their benchmark, but it creates boring gameplay.